London, March 3 (IANS): Besides hormones at work, a key brain region has been found to be involved in all three phases of the sexual pleasure cycle - wanting sex, having sex and inhibiting sex, a new research shows.

The cerebral cortex region of the brain is involved in all three phases and each of these phases depends on distinct networks within the brain.

It is also clear that alterations in these brain networks are associated with sexual dysfunction.

"For all its primitive functions, human sex draws heavily on the functionality of the part of the brain that has evolved most recently, the cerebral cortex," said lead researcher Janniko Georgiadis from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

The new review looked at how the brain impacts the sequence of physical and emotional changes that occur as a person participates in sexually stimulating activities.

The study appeared in the journal Clinical Anatomy Review.